Dexter Comics
Dexter Comics


MAIN
Screenshot Gallery
Mission Walkthrus
Characters
Weapons
Weapon Strength Chart
Gadgets
Solved Mysteries
Unsolved Mysteries
Rumors
Interesting Stuff (part 1)
Interesting Stuff (part 2)
Tricks/Glitches
The Island
The Silo Mysteries

MEMBERS
Character Gallery
The Biker
The Facility
General Ourumov
St. Petersburg...
Egyptian Temple...

Member Info

BETA
What is Beta?
Beta Version
Beta Guns
Citadel
Citadel Found
All Bonds
Items
Beta Fakes
Casino Level?
Beta Leftovers?

CODES
Cheats
Button Codes
Open Levels

Gameshark FAQ

Gameshark
Gameshark MCM

GS Modifiers
GS Level Modifiers
GS Custom Characters

Action Replay
AR Modifiers
AR Custom Characters


MULTI
Characters
Strategies
Scenarios
Maps
Awards

MISC
GS Memory Editor
Japanese Version
Fake Screens
Polls
Submitted Artwork 1
Submitted Artwork 2
Submitted Artwork 3
Submitted Artwork 4
Game vs Movie
Goldeneye NES
Bond Film References
Mem. Ed. Characters
Bond Mysteries
Win Award

Welcome to Goldeneye at Detstar.com
VOTED THE BEST GOLDENEYE 007 WEBSITE ON THE NET
Site best viewed with Internet Explorer on 1024x768 resolution

Home | "Fan" Mail | Ask Det |Links | This Site | FAQ | E-mail Contact

GOLDENEYE 007 BETA VERSION:

What is a "Beta" version? View my quick Explanation.

Extensive Beta Information, found in the following sections:

BETA DAM

BETA FACILITY

BETA RUNWAY

BETA SURFACE

BETA BUNKER

BETA SILO

BETA FRIGATE

BETA STATUE

BETA ARCHIVES

BETA STREETS

BETA DEPOT

BETA TRAIN

BETA JUNGLE

BETA CONTROL

BETA CAVERNS

BETA CRADLE

BETA AZTEC

BETA EGYPTIAN

BETA MULTIPLAYER

BETA CHEAT OPTIONS

BETA VEHICLES

BETA MISC.

 

Every game has a beta stage. It's a rough test game before the final version is completed. The games always receive changes before they are completed. But in the case of Goldeneye 007, an unusual amount of changes were made. Many options were lost, such as characters, levels, items, cheats, as well as objectives. These sections are dedicated to the many things removed from the game, when it was in the beta stage.

The remaining Beta info, that I haven't classed above, as well as other important things are below:

I've found an actual "Beta Video", featuring the old KF7, Sean Connery, and Blackhawk Magnum. Download it from my Video Downloads section.

 

One of the aspects of the game's beta stage, was the fact that all guards were programmed with the "scarface" head. This was of course not intended to be left, it was just how the game was setup at that time. After that, they were all given blond heads, before being set up to be given random heads each time you play.

 
There was once a working elevator in the Silo. You can't tell very well, but I got these screens of a promo video. It's Bond riding the Silo elevator, going up in the silo.
If you want to see it for yourself, you can download and watch it in my Video Downloads section.

 

This shot shows the weird holding of the AR33, a different AR33, and the Jungle Commando in the Silo. Maybe he was one of the first enemies; The digit 00 in Gameshark is for his uniform, so it's likely.

 

I wonder why he doesn't have a scar-face. Notice how this walkway doesn't go anywhere. No door. It's directly off the elevator, which can partially be seen in the left shot.

 

The Bunker's screen, as well as every other computer screen in the game, had the James Bond silhouette on it. This was sent to me, scanned from Issue 93 of Nintendo Power. I'm still baffled as to why the enemy would have Bond's pic on the screen, and why he would have to photograph it. I'm assuming it was planned as just a temporary fill, until the replacement images were made. 

 

Mentioned in my Beta Facility section, but being that it's such a "famous" picture, I've included it here. The tanks are stacked, except for the two at the very end. There's also no fog. The guards all have heads, that are the blond guy with the crooked smile. I wish Rare would have left the tanks like this though! They look so much better.

 

Just one small thing that went by me unnoticed. This screenshot, from Rare's website, shows the shotgun in the inventory. But closer inspection shows that there are six menu bars to select, instead of the five that there are now.

 

 

This could be a real screenshot, but I think it's probably two of them pasted together, including a shot of the watch, and another one of Connery. But WAIT... what's that TT33 weapon? (zoomed in pic) An old gun? I know it's the DD44, whose name in real life is the TT33. It's down the bottom of the weapons, where the DD44 actually appears, so I'm sure that's what it is. Now we know that the DD44 is another gun that underwent a name change, before the game was finished. And, the name PPK that's above it. The Walther PPK, just like in the movie.

It's highly likely, that at one time, ALL of the games guns featured their real names, before they were changed to protect copyrights.

 

From the evidence I've gathered, Bond wore the blue suit in most (if not all) levels, even the Facility, image with the Rocket Launcher, we can see a white cuff, which could be only from this suit. Another temporary thing, until the rest of the suits were programmed into the game.

 

I just thought that I'd add this picture of the Blackhawk Magnum to my beta section. This picture also happens to have Sean Connery being shot at. The Magnum's name was changed due to the copyright attached to it's name. We all know that the gun is now called the Cougar Magnum.

 

The Streets level. It looks like the level is snowed over. I think this isn't a game screenshot, but more of an artwork to base the level on. I've found this shot on Rare's site also, and it was taken from a Rare computer. So everything could just be white because textures weren't filled in.

 

These aren't beta pictures, but I've included them anyway, because the mysterious island is still an interesting part of the game.

You can use the GS no clipping code, or get out of Bond code on the actual dam, and you can fly to the tower, and make it seem that you're actually inside the tower. That's how the right pic was made. For extensive Island information, with loads of screenshots, check out my Dam Island Section.

 

This picture is from the instruction booklet, and the character seen in the top right appears to be Sean Connery, wearing Bond's white suit from Goldfinger. It's the only real game screenshot there is in the entire booklet, and it's from the Beta stages. The booklet was obviously printed out before the game was even close to being finished. So was the box.

 

The picture on the left is the character select screen, that I scanned from the Instruction Booklet. Notice how the characters are in a different order than they are in the final game's character screen. That's not a big deal, but wait, who's that character on the bottom left of the bottom screen, to the left of Boris? It looks like Sean Connery.

It was hard to tell when it was scanned, so I made an enlarged picture of it. (top right) It's definitely a picture of Sean Connery, compare it to the Gameshark picture (left). He seems to be the only Bond to be in numerous pictures of the earlier versions of Goldeneye. That's why I think he was deleted much later, after the rest of the former Bonds.

 

And I've finally discovered the meaning of the characters in a different order. There are Gameshark codes to change each picture, and each picture has a hexadecimal digit. The digits in order go the same as the characters are pictured above.

00 Pierce Brosnan
01 Roger Moore
02 Timothy Dalton
03 Sean Connery
04 Boris
05 Ourumov
06 Trevelyan
07 Valentin
08 Xenia
09 Natalya
0A Baron Samedi
0B Jaws
0C Mayday
0D Oddjob
0E Question Mark
0F Mishkin

You can see by the list I've made with each pictures hex value. Put in correct hex order, they follow the same pattern as the above screenshot. This explains the order of the characters above. So according to this, Moore and Dalton would have been in the picture above, but they were simply off screen.

They character orders were changed, probably to a more correct order with the main characters selectable first.

Thanks to Ian Rogers for getting me to have a look at this. Without him, I would have never even thought of checking the hex values.

.

 

 

 

Final Thoughts

It's too bad that some of the things from the Beta stages were deleted, because lots of them would have made the game more fun. But if they were included, we'd just take them for granted and never think twice about it. How special do you think Jaws and Baron Samedi are? If they weren't there, but were Multiplayer characters, we'd want them just as bad as Oddjob and Mayday. The Citadel could be no more special than the Caves. But if the Caves were replaced, we would have wished that it wasn't.

 
 

All content is Copyright © 1999-2007 by Detstar.com unless otherwise noted. See terms of use.
Detstar.com is an independently owned website, and not affiliated in any way with Nintendo or Rareware.


Detstar.com